To think DH shouldn't have dropped off MIL

Is it cultural to also not feed children at Eid? Because surely that's the biggest issue despite OP making it all about a lift home.

@gollyimholly if you ask MN to move this thread to the South Asian or the Muslim board, you might receive better replies. At the moment, although you sought advice here, you're having to educate Mumsnetters who don't understand certain family structures or the complexity of ritual preparations in a home. It's not fair to you; I'm sorry. (Also I'm perplexed that so many Mumsnetters only have Christmas dinner as a lived experience point of reference for family hosting; I wish more people socialised outside their own cultural groups.)

I think she should say she's not doing it full stop.

She's not doing it at all next year, because it's someone else's turn to host.

And the year after that, they can have a discussion, and IF her husband really wants to host something at their house, it's on the condition that the cooking preparation is divided up in advance, with one person bringing each thing. Any children will be properly cared for, the OP will get to sit down and eat with everyone else, and her husband will do all the clearing up afterwards. (The next day, if necessary.) And if any of those conditions are not met, they are NEVER hosting Eid at their house again.

She really does need to put her foot down.

The problem is that her husband clearly wants to look like the perfect son who has married the perfect wife who can click her fingers like Mary Poppins and produce a feast for the whole family at the drop of a hat, leaving him free to schmooze his mother and drive her home afterwards. But real life is not magic and these things take work.

Even if her husband is completely stupid, his mother and sister should know how much work these things take and they should have offered to help. But they were happy to take advantage of the OP's husband wanting to be the big "I am" because it meant that they didn't have to lift a finger.

Either way, nothing will ever change unless the OP takes a stand and says "never again".

So rude and utterly culturally oblivious. It was Eid. You don't just chuck a casserole in the oven. The number of similar minded people on this thread, I can only assume that some sort of bat signal has gone up calling them all to the thread to dismiss OP's culture.

I'm sorry but your in laws sound pretty selfish, OP.

You are clearly very kind and generous, you deserved help!

Do make sure you make it clear to DH you won't be single handedly prepping Eid ever again.

OP, your husband sounds lazy and useless and his sister not much better.
You take on too much.
Life is always hard with lazy men.
You are not respfor your lazy husbands relationship with his mother.
Stop the entertaining.
Stop feeling responsible when your husband doesn't.
The not feeding his child tells me he really is useless.

Stop being so tolerant of him. Do not have lots of children with a lazy selfish man.

As per usual on MN, people aren't getting the context of a different culture/religion.

Eid hosting is like Christmas dinner hosting hence the cleaning and hours of cooking of multiple and "not the usual dinner party" dishes.

And a child staying up late is also completely normal for Eid/Christmas.

OP, this doesn't feel like a partnership with your DH. He says, you do. And your feelings/opinions/energy levels are of no concern to him. Is he more concerned with how things look to others rather than your wellbeing?

I do not understand.

what takes hours and hours and hours of cooking for two extra people, and what is “go go go” about serving a meal for four adults? Why was the child not fed and in bed by 8pm?

@gollyimholly I used to do that kind of thing and end up exhausted and resentful, but then I learnt. If you're going to act like a doormat, inconsiderate people will walk all over you. Your husband and in-laws are happy to sit and watch you exhaust yourself. Why are you happy to let that happen?

You could have said to DH "I'm not able to do the fancy cooking, if you've invited them the options are you can cook, or order in, or they can bring the food". If they are unhappy with you isn't that a less bad situation than being up all night, not eating and not feeding your toddler?

Show your daughter that you and her matter.

I don't understand how the three of them were comfortable tucking into food that you'd spent hours making, but were too overwhelmed to enjoy yourself. Eid might be about family, but they relegated you to the role of servant. Your husband is completely at fault here.

I do think people aren't fully understanding what an Eid meal involves.

I do agree with @Azandme that more can be prepped in advance than a lot of Indians realise (though I was a bit 😮about the roti dough!) but the other element that I suspect people don't get is how much needs to be done on the spot - things like samosas and bhajis are so much nicer freshly fried that in most families someone is doing that in the kitchen throughout, similarly rotis are done fresh, most things are heated on the stove, it's not like a Christmas dinner where you can shove it all in the oven and sit and wait. My parents use their oven for storage!

Having said all of that, it's absolutely an option to simplify the menu, just because it's traditional doesn't mean you can't and also I agree with a few PP that traditionally family would bring some elements of the meal, usually one person wouldn't do the lot. So I think next time, I would say "oh now we have a little one, I can't do the full menu, but if you really want XXX, you are welcome to bring it"

I think that has to be the lesson that comes out of this. Tell your husband NO MORE last minute arrangements. You're not doing it. If he wants it to happen, it needs to be a proper plan. You know who is hosting 2 weeks in advance. Otherwise, you're not cooking.

@Ohioatdawn oh come on, you’re being totally disingenuous. Why the faux shock at someone decorating for Eid?

I don’t think the issue is your DH driving your MIL home at 10.30 at night. I could see my husband doing that for my parents to be honest! The issue is the meal being foisted on you etc and him not making sure the little one had dinner. The latter could be sorted by just communicating better. The former needs a proper sit down conversation about alternative options as that doesn’t seem fair at all.

@Azandme I'm so glad you posted that. I was wondering why this stuff couldn't be prepped and frozen.

YANBU except you and your DD should have been able to eat with everyone else.

I cannot imagine the effort to cook a celebratory meal like this for Eid but your DH and his DM should have helped to allow you to eat with them.

And arriving in a taxi is fine but not home? Ridiculous. You have a DH problem. He needs to put you and your DD first.

It "has to be a performance" because it's Eid. Not just any old family dinner.

It's a hugely important religious event, and there are a lot of traditions and cultural expectations.

I’ve never celebrated Eid but having read this thread, and having friends who are Muslim, it really isn’t an hour’s work to prepare this meal, nor a matter of chucking a casserole in a pot. But it is usually a group effort if you have family members coming together and especially laborious to do if you’re not in the swing of cooking this sort of stuff every day.

The lift home feels unnecessary and the last minute invitation very unhelpful. I think for next time you and DH need to be very clear with each other on what will happen when, and not let so much land on you whatever happens.

I can't believe you pulled it off with just a few days notice, OP!

I bet the food was amazing 👏

The significance of Eid is all about food & family in a similar way that Christmas is, and I'd say that Eid has much more time consuming expectations about food with a complex menu.

It was really unfair of your DH to extend the invite without checking with you first.

It was even more unfair that MIL and SIL don't contribute anything at all.

I don't think it was unreasonable of your DH to drop them home but you being left with all the clean up must have been really disheartening.

Can you make it clear to DH you don't wish to host again? Or at least not for a LONG time?!

Hope you get to rest up today. And your little one would have been fine, sounds like she had plenty of food, one late meal won't harm her.

But if Inlaws offer help would therr be complaints of 'they don't think I can cope they are judging me they must be talking about me behind my back' so really can they ever win?

I don't understand what it has to be performance

I wouldn’t want to do a 2 hour round trip to drop someone off. But if dh does he can crack on. But if I were entertaining with a toddler food would be pretty basic. And I’d have cleaned up in the morning while dh had kids or vice versa. It feels like your are being a bit dramatic and resentful. If you invite them get dh helping with prep, keep it simple don’t make life harder for yourself than it needs to be.

It is, and I think your biggest issue was the short notice from your husband.

The food for Eid is epic, and hugely time consuming, but something I have learnt (that my Indian born partner was initially shocked by) is that most of it can be either made in advance or prepped. This might be useful if there is a next time.

In India food is made on the day because the heat and the historic lack of refrigeration meant it used to have to be. Even though this is no longer the case, traditions persist. His family don't prep and freeze. We do though 😁.

Most gravies are fine made in advance and refrigerated/frozen then reheated Samosa can be made and frozen before frying, as can the filling. They can also be frozen after frying and heated through in the oven - but this is slightly less good. Even roti dough can be made in advance, portioned and frozen until needed (do NOT tell my MIL I do this! 😁)

I used to put toddler dd in her highchair when I cooked, and let her "help". It was amazing how long she'd bash around with roti dough, some frozen peas, and some crispy onions and we used to cook and eat her creations (sometimes faked on my part!)

Biryani does need to be made on the day, even though I prefer day 2. But it's a lot less work to just make biryani from scratch, rather than everything.

Desserts - it depends what you made, but there are work around for many of them. My ILs buy them - also a good work around if you live in an area where you can get freshly handmade.

Preparing food is usually a group activity, if they aren't going to help they need to be a little flexible in their expectations.